ponedeljek, 05. februar 2018

Ghetaldus Zagreb King Regula IIb

The KING Regula IIb actually doesn’t exist in other variant
than with Ghetaldus Ghenar lens. The body design clearly resembles
Regula III series, thus the naming is a bit strange. On the other hand
the shutter and lens assembly seem to come from the King Regula II
series, could be even from Regula IIa, which would explain the logic
behind the naming.
Regula IIb is the simplest among Ghetaldus
cameras, but still offers a flash synchronization, a self-timer, a
double exposure prevention and a shutter cocking with a film advance
lever. The film counter is of a deducting type.

Regula IIb, variant GRIIb250.

Simple viewfinder camera

Ghetaldus Zagreb Ghenar F/3.5 45 mm lens

3 elements in 3 groups

Minimum aperture: F/16

Pronto shutter

1/200, 1/100, 1/50, 1/25 + B

Self timer

Flash synchronization

Dimensions

Weight: 490 g

130 ×70 × 85 mm

The same form of the Ghenar lens is found on the Regula IIIa and
it seems that the serial number sequence is shared among these two
models indicating IIb and IIIa were manufactured side by side. There is
no other serial number on the cameras than the one on the lens.

GRIIb200

“Ghetaldus-Zagreb GHENAR 1:3,5/45“ engraving on the lens
name plate. The focusing part is barrel shaped, still with the “20” m
distance engraving. Two triangles indicating selected shutter speed and
distance respectively. A red dot on the shutter speed rim located on a
flattened surface (previous version has recession between two teeth
painted red). Sample needed.

GRIIb250

Same as the GRIIb200, but without the “20” m engraving.

GRIIb275

Even width of the bright stripes on the film rewind
knob. Strange front plate finish - looks polished while all other
cameras has finely textured finish.

GRIIb300

Same as the GRIIb250, but “II” engraving on the camera name plate with Roman number characters further apart.

Potential additional variants

There seems to be 2 slightly
different film rewind knobs – one with even and one with uneven width of
the bright stripes. So far I can confirm only 1 Regula IIb sample with
evenly spaced rewind knob (GRIIb275).
Additional oddity is the
05625 Regula IIb that has film speed memo on the rewind knob. The film
speed memo seems to be the only functional difference among IIb and
IIIa, thus I strongly doubt the rewind knob is original on the mentioned
camera. Or could it be an assembly mistake?
There seem to be
slight changes in arrow on the exposure counter knob, distance scale and
DOF engraving style. Some cameras have thicker engraving. Not enough
cameras were examined to confirm this isn't a production variation.

Regula IIb Ghetaldus Serial Numbers

In the table below there are
all serial numbers known to me. In case there is a "*" symbol besides
the Variant, the Variant was assigned based on an educated guess due to a
lack of data.